How to Be the Next Central Asian Leader

When 2016 started there were no national elections scheduled in any of the five Central Asian countries. By the end of January, Kazakhstan had called snap parliamentary elections and Tajikistan and Turkmenistan were planning referendums to change their constitutions and allow the current leaders to remain in power indefinitely.

To some it was another reminder that changes in leadership are coming closer in Central Asia, where two of the presidents are already well into their 70s. Speculation has been rife for many years about who might come to power next in the individual states but, in at least four of the five countries -- Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan -- the systems are so opaque that even guesswork is difficult.

For example, no one outside of Turkmenistan (and probably only a very few inside Turkmenistan) would have thought prior to first President Saparmurat Niyazov's death in late 2006 that Health Minister Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov would have succeeded him to become Turkmenistan's second president.